Boning: the bane of historical costumers everywhere

To be perfectly honest, I love boning once it’s done. I love the feel of a well-done, steel-boned corset. I love the stiff, crisp look of good stays. But I really despise the process because it involves precision and I am HORRID at precision. So this post is going to be short because otherwise it will devolve into me cry-ranting about how non-exact this is and how afraid I am that it’ll turn out badly.

I’m doing sort of a mash-up of bone channel layouts for a few reasons. One, I’m going to use steel bones which means I’m also going to use bone casing, and that means that I can’t put my boning right next to each other. Two, I didn’t want to do full-boned stays my first time (scary!) but I also didn’t like the sparseness of the half-boned stays below.

They look good for this pattern, but a bit strange on mine. Drawing copyright: marquise.de, contouche.de, lumieres.de, manteau.de, costumebase.org, or A. Bender

Between the drawing above and looking at the Chinoiserie Stays (http://shadowofmyhand.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-chinoiserie-stays.html) I came up with my layout and I suppose we’ll see how it works out.

I definitely recommend drawing out your boning channels on your paper pattern first….

But in good news I bought THE BEST fabric for the outside of my stays. I’m literally obsessed with it.

Joann Fabrics, $5.99 /yd
what a find!

Now as much as I’d like to sew my boning channels and get on with everything, I’m out of bone casing, and I feel like I need to use it with the steel bones. So I’ll order the casing and some bones and hopefully you’ll hear from me soon!

 

Glitter and teacups (and needle pokes and boning woes),

Sammie